Metro Plates
Black Chicago: Population of the City and the Metro
This metro plate opens the Atlasmont file on Black Chicago: the population itself — its size, its share of the metro, and its distribution across the city and suburbs that make up the metropolitan whole.
In Chicago, in Chicago, that pattern is the plate's whole subject: the table below gives the published share and count, and the map shades the share. The decennial census counted 787,551 Black residents in the city of Chicago — just under 29 percent of the city's population — and the metropolitan area holds about 1.6 million Black residents across its Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin counties. The modern data tell a two-part story: a metro population that ranks among the nation's largest, and a city population that has been declining for four decades from its peak share of nearly 40 percent. For Chicago, held against the national currents, the state's own rows say how its movement stands.
The South and West Sides
For Chicago, in Chicago, that pattern is the plate's whole subject: the table below gives the published share and count, and the map shades the share. In Chicago, black Chicago is geographically concentrated to a degree unusual even among the segregated metros of the North. Held against the national ladder, Chicago's own rows say where its attainment stands.
The Decline in the City Count
For Black Chicago: Population of the City and the Metro, the method is the atlas's own: named sources, published figures, and a table that carries what the map cannot. The city of Chicago's Black population peaked in the 1980 census at roughly 1.2 million, about 40 percent of the city. Every census since has recorded a decline — through the 2010s the city lost Black residents in the hundreds of thousands cumulatively — even as the national Black population grew. The plate reports what the sources publish for Chicago and leaves alone what they do not.
The Suburban Ring
Filed in this series as Black Chicago: Population of the City and the Metro, the plate below states the published record for its subject and reads it closely. Its table records Black residents of the city of Chicago, decennial census count: 787,551; Black residents of the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately: 1.6 Million. In Chicago, the figures are the argument; the text only keeps them in order.
Composition
Survey data describe a Black Chicago of pronounced internal spread. The region holds a major Black professional class anchored by its universities, hospitals, and corporate headquarters, a historic Black business community, and one of the largest Black Catholic and Black Muslim populations in the country. It also records some of the most difficult neighborhood-level indicators in this reference — tracts on the South and West Sides where poverty, vacancy, and health outcomes resemble the hardest-hit geographies in America. Foreign-born Black residents, principally Caribbean and African, are a smaller share here than in New York or Miami, making Black Chicago one of the most predominantly native-born, Southern-rooted Black populations of any northern metro.
Reading the Chicago Numbers
Chicago is the profile where trend and level most need separating. By level — 1.6 million metro residents, a top-five Black population — the city remains a capital of Black America. By trend — four decades of city decline, an aging core population, sustained out-migration — it is the clearest large case of the redistribution now reshaping Black geography toward the South and the suburbs. Both statements are census facts, and the profile's figures should be cited with their geography attached: city or metro, count or share, level or direction.
A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black residents of the city of Chicago, decennial census count: 787,551; Black residents of the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately: 1.6 Million. For Chicago, each figure is published by the source named below and rounded as published; the plate's map shades the Black share of the population on the same basis, so the table and the map can be read against each other without conversion.
The record behind this plate of Chicago is published, not estimated by this atlas: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census; American Community Survey; Population Estimates Program. Where the table carries a national benchmark row for Chicago, the row is labeled with the basis it is published on — the same measure, the same basis, two geographies.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black residents of the city of Chicago, decennial census count | 787,551 |
| Black residents of the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately | 1.6 Million |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census; American Community Survey; Population Estimates Program. Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.